It is so easy to feel nostalgia over what has already happened. What I read in books are sermons, stories, all completed. What I see in front of me is the messiness of people with names and stories of their own. I see struggle and I see gray area. There is nothing romantic about the gray area.

I am searching for this faith that is romantic, that comes with certainty of meaning, of purpose, of future. Less a far-reaching desert and more a foggy European street. A faith that satisfies my worldly predisposition toward the ideal.

²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for him,
to the soul who seeks him.
²⁶It is good that one should wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.

My life is so loud. I put such great pressure on myself to do and to work and to succeed. But these things are not Christian. God says, “Wait for me.” I wait, God does. God works. God succeeds. I wait.

It’s been a very difficult season for me. Mostly, I have asked too much of myself and not enough of God. It is by His grace that I wake up in the morning, but it is by my strength that I live. May this not continue to be so.

Okay, deep breath. God has so much more for me.

As our worlds get smaller and smaller we see the world less the way that God wants us to see it. We start to think that we are big and the world is small. I think one of the worst ways we do this is when we reduce our world to the size of the church. In a fight, a hand will look at its foot and say, “i’m glad you’re a foot- we’ll need to punch and kick if we’re going to win this.” But when the hand cannot see beyond the body, it forgets that it is in the middle of a war. It forgets that the enemy is the one standing across the room. It forgets that its body is not all there is, but all it has. Then it begins to look at its foot and say, “hmmm… your toes are pretty short. It would be better if they were fingers. And why is it that your arch is rounded? It should look like a palm.” We forget our similarities- that we share the same skin, the same DNA, the same neurons carrying signals from the same brain- and begin to only see our differences.

We can’t survive with this perspective. Our enemy needs only to throw a little dust in our eyes and we forget that he exists. Or we believe that he exists, and that we are the only ones fighting him. That we are the only ones of whom the Head approves. And when the Head sends coordinated messages to the entire body, we flail in all directions. The Head reminds us, “Body, we are on the same team.”

“We are one tonight, and we’re dreaming out loud. And the world is flawed, but these scars will heal…”

This is what we’ve been tasked to create. It has made me spend a good deal of time thinking about my youth group experience and how we can best address the needs of young people. We still have a lot work to do in our vision and structure for Oasis (as we always will!), but one thought has stuck out to me in our planning thus far.

Much of presenting Christ to youth is about walking the line between the sacred and the profane. I think we often don’t believe that most kids are prepared for a real Truth experience; this fear is much of the reason for the creation of youth group to begin with. At the same time, we don’t want a purely secular interaction, as we know we’d short-change them by shying away from introducing them to Jesus.

But the answer is not to choose both. We often allow the profane if it means earning our chance to share the sacred. We split our ministry halfway between entertainment (which holds kids’ attention) and religious ritual (where we hope they will be ‘saved’). This often works at getting kids in the building. It sometimes works in getting them to “pray the prayer”. But it rarely works in producing a lifelong devotion to God.

So what is lacking? I think we have to stop seeing ourselves as the salesmen, from viewing Jesus as a product. When we do, we separate Him from the world He meets so naturally and perfectly. This is the very reason the Word became flesh, so that our profane world and The Sacred God could be brought together. I think what is missing in our approach is this real interaction between these elements of sacred and profane. The God of our worship songs doesn’t seem capable of translating to the realm of silly games and funny videos, much less to the inner turmoil of broken families, relationships, and lives.

What I hope we can do at Oasis is bring these two worlds closer together, by addressing the profane more fully and presenting the sacred less religiously. We want to meet the profane by talking about gangs, about poverty, about family issues, about friendships. We want to make the sacred known not by our ceremony, but by bringing to light how God’s Love reaches into the brokenness of our lives.

Hopefully, in this we allow God the space to reveal Himself to our youth as the fulfilment of everything in their lives. Silly games and all.

If we’re adding to noise, turn off this song.

I want to start by saying that there was much about the event that was easy to appreciate. The short speeches delivered by five local pastors and two local businessmen were based on Biblical truth and their prayers focused on God’s love. I said ‘Amen’ to every prayer. It is exciting to see so many Christians gather for the important task of petitioning God on behalf of our city. (Even if we didn’t actually get to pray out loud.)

But, to say it clearly, I believe the foundations of this meeting were greatly flawed. I realize that I am just a 21 year-old writing on a seldom-read blog. So I approach this post with humility. I have great respect for the Christian leaders of our city and those who hosted the event; I can only hope to one day enjoy the nearness with God that I see in the lives of these men.

My issue is with this idea that Christians need to dominate culture in order to influence the world, or at least to maximize our influence on the world. What the “seven mountains” philosophy teaches is that controlling culture is one of the most effective ways to love people. I realize that a word like “controlling” has negative connotations, but when Christ followers constitute a minority in our society, this is unfortunately how Christian dominance is construed.

This idea of pursuing cultural redemption makes sense in a lot of ways. If our post-Christian society is using these strongholds (government, business, etc.) to dictate anti-Christian sentiment and behavior, then we as God-fearers must be deeply grieved. And the response that would seem to follow is to fight for them.

However, here are two objections to this line of thinking:

1. It’s not a Christlike model of mission.

Jesus wasn’t about ruling on the mountain, but about dying in the valley. He was about selfless submission, not about securing power. Remember that in the wilderness, he rejected Satan’s offer of the kingdoms of this earth, and that reigning in authority was what the people wanted for him, not what he wanted for himself.

The Bible does not teach us to dominate culture. It teaches us to live with a love so counter-cultural that it catches a fleeing world. To live generously. To love strategically. But not to capture culture.

2. It’s not an effective form of mission.

If you’re in tune with American culture today (as, unfortunately, it appears much of the world is), you know that it values just about everything that God does not. Pride, selfishness, violence, sexual sin, etc. The Church does not have a diminishing grip on culture- it has lost it entirely. If you live in the church world, you may be persuaded to think that Switchfoot and Facing the Giants have a chance to swing the pendulum of culture back to Christianity with a little more help. I encourage you to spend a lunch period at La Cumbre Junior High and see if you feel the same.

Equally importantly, what is the message that we send when we attempt to control culture? It’s not a secret that the vast majority of Americans see the Church as hypocritical, judgmental, and uncaring. But this is not because it is what culture teaches. It is because it is what we teach when we try to control culture. We ban gay marriage and teach homosexuals that they don’t deserve the same rights as we do. Even though that’s not what we’re saying, it’s what they’re hearing. This is the message that society is receiving from us today.

So, should our response be to flee from government, from education, from entertainment? Hardly. But we must not make the mistake of overestimating their salvific value. Love is our only hope. A Church that seeks influence in culture will see its struggle increase as culture moves farther and farther from the Truth. But a Church that seeks to glorify God by following His commands to love our neighbors as ourselves, to provide for the poor, to empower the oppressed… this church will enjoy the favor of the people. This message of love is the one that I heard presented by the leaders of the Santa Barbara church this morning. Let’s pray that together we would pursue an engagement with the world predicated on God’s love as He would have us express it.

If you can overthrow then overthrow,
If you can overthrow your soul
If you can overthrow then overthrow,
If you can overthrow yourself, yourself, yourself